AENEAS will develop innovative electrical energy storage systems that will provide solutions to improve overall energy efficiency and drastically reduce emissions from shipping vessels. These systems are safer and more cost-effective than traditional batteries.

AENEAS’ objective is to contribute to environmentally friendly and climate-neutral maritime and inland waterway transport through new, next-generation clean energy storage solutions. It will focus on an early and increased deployment of climate-neutral energy storage solutions and a significant electrification of maritime transport.

AENEAS will provide solutions to improve the overall energy efficiency and drastically reduce the energy consumption of maritime and inland waterway vessels, based on innovative, safe and cost-effective electrical energy storage compared to traditional batteries. To achieve this, AENEAS will develop three innovative electrical energy storage (ESS) solutions for maritime and inland waterway transport, which go beyond traditional battery systems:

Solid State Batteries (SSB) for constant load water transport applications.

Supercapacitors (SC) for marine and river transport applications to reduce peak power demand and peaks during charging.
Hybrid system, combining SSB and SC for waterborne transport applications requiring high energy and power density energy storage solutions.

The solutions allow for electric (partial or full) waterborne transport, taking into account the conditions that specific vessels may encounter, including adverse conditions outside sheltered waters or up rivers. AENEAS will evaluate them for a range of applications and end-uses in short sea shipping and inland waterways. For each of these three ESS a use case will be demonstrated in TRL 5. At the same time, AENEAS will define the trajectory of the three ESSs for their application on different types of vessels, achieving a comprehensive understanding of the ESSs and their applicability for various waterborne transports. Finally, AENEAS will define a roadmap for full-scale on-board demonstrators of two ESSs by 2027.

The objective of the Fundación Valenciaport will be to advise, as a port, on the connection of the batteries to the electricity grid. In addition, it will enable the use and validation of these technologies through the wide network of contacts in the maritime industry, supporting the dissemination of the project through the maritime industry. Special emphasis will be given to WaterborneTP and ZEWT.

The project, which is part of the HORIZON-CL5-2022-D5-01- 01 work programme, involves 14 partners, has a budget of EUR 4.897 million and a duration of 36 months.